What I'm interested in is how do you long termers keep it interesting? How are you getting all your protein and managing your "bad" carbs and "ok" carbs and eating all those veggies day in and day out?

I dont need your macros but your techniqies. Do you cook up large batches and carcasses and eat the same thing for a few days? Do you belong to co-ops and share food with the outhre lumberacks? Do you have families? I clearly need to give more time and thoght, but its seems so daunting to keep up, given the short bursts I've tried. I imagine boiling 2 dozen eggs on Sunday would be a start.

We make huge salads so we don't have to every meal. Beyond that, it's making sure you have the right foods in the house and cook more meat and veggies than you need so you can snack on leftovers or use it for lunch the next day. We always have a bowl of fruit on the k-word table that never goes empty.

I'm not big on hard boiled eggs but we go through 3 or 4 dozen a week in my house. My son and I are both away for a while. I expect that is dropping dramatically.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

you were both helpful. Guess I really knew the deal; and it take work and discipline, until it becomes second nature. I'm pretty good at the grocery store. And my wife doesn't "fight me"; although, she likes to keep a bunch of "white stuffs" around. I guess mostly, I just need to move forward another step, keep adding more good stuff around the house, keep in mind to cook meat in large bulk and buy so much produce "I have to eat it or it spoils". Last night I cooked 5 lbs of ground beef and had it with a bunch of cooked spinach. Yum. Still meat left over.

Went to whoelsale market and got broccoli, spinach, peppers, celery (for peanut butter!) and romaine lettuce. Wife bought blackberries and nectorines from Frmers Market. We have apples and bananas, and frozen berries.

My cupboards have canned chicken, tuna, salmon, mackeral. Freezer has some chicken and steak and liver and shrimp. Eggs of course. Will be more consistent as I'm waking earlier now.

Lots of nuts all over. Only the kind with no added oil now. Walnuts, almonds, peanuts in sheel, pistachios. I have lowered my intake though.

coconut oil and olive oil, period. We save the bacon fat too. I haven't started trying to save beef drippings.

So, yeah, I think I got it down. The cheats kill me (Five Guys!) and not having stuff handy, ready before I leave for work can lead to problems. Or just lazy ness at home.

Thanks to you all for giving me great advice and you can only lead a horse to water. :)

you might want to invest in some good quality protein bars (PHD diet whey are good ones that spring to mind) that you can keep handy at work. That's what I do. Stops you snacking on crap.

As for the cheats, I know a lot of diet guru types that advise against them, at least for a while, as they can make you more likely to cheat, if you see what I mean. If you never have a cheat meal, you never really want them, supposedly...

I will look into quality protein bars. Canned fish is good, but variety is nice, espeically if trying to hit all that protein regularly.

I did some Eat-Stop-Eat and dropped weight; but I imagine it was mostly because I was eating less total calories. I'm thinking at my advanced weight, focusing on overall calorie cutting, and constantly looking for ways to add more vegs and fruit and good fat to replace junk, is more the ticket. I don't regularly over eat, as long as I"m eating the righ stuff.

Eat-Stop-Eat works exactly because of the decreased calories. It's not magic. There are different ways to cut calories that work better for each person. The trick is to find what works for you. Eating the good stuff helps manage cravings since your body isn't deficient in anything.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

That's probably the answer. Some flavors are related to certain nutrients but in this case it's probably fat related. You handle it appropriately.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

I find that cravings eventually go away for the most part. I would be lying if I knew the best way to get to this point though. I jump between "cheat meals are good" and "cheat meals are bad, at first". What I mean is, I think cheat meals ARE good. However, if you have certain cravings, I think a more cold turkey approach "might" be better until you no longer crave whatever-it-is-you-crave. I'm on the fence, though, so I apologise for the uncertainty.

For me, I used to "crave" pasta and bread, and could never imagine living without them. I even thought pasta was healthy and brown bread was, too. They used to not only make up a large part of my diet but also a large part of my cooking repertoire (I could only really cook pasta). Now, though, I honestly never crave pasta or bread. I wouldn't have it by choice, and rarely have them. I'm not sure exactly what got me there, though. I have various thoughts on that but don't want to ramble too much just yet. Oh, I also used to crave fast food and I never get that now, either.

With clients i've found that I can hand them a road map to a great diet - a meal plan, with recipes for said meal plan. It's all there for them. They still don't do it though. I've been trying to take responsibility for client compliance more and my approach is changing. I don't go on about carbs this, carbs that, fat this, fat that, bla bla bla. I learn about their lifestyle and look for holes. It's all about habit, not diet. What bad habits do you have? More importantly what habits can you change. For example, a new client I train always eats crappy food late at night when she gets in from the gym. It's not because she craves crappy food it's because she's had a long day work a couple of hours training and she's tired and just.needs.food.... I could give her the perfect meal or snack to have afterwards but it won't work because that's not the problem. The problem is after a long days work and exercise the last thing she wants to or will do is expend any more energy making something "healthy". The only way around this is preparing in advance, something that can just be thrown in the oven when she gets home i.e. get into the habbit of preparing your last meal of the day whilst making your first (this is for the client, not necessarily what i'm saying for you). So you go after the behaviour and worry less about the macros, at first, especially if you want this to be sustainable.

I think cooking is seriously under rated. Is it sad that I often get excited about cooking the veggies that I used to hate? Seriously, I think anything tastes good with garlic and cherry tomatoes. Right now I'm always chopping up loads of onion, peppers, and mushrooms, and always have cherry tomatoes. These are my "core veggies" just now. They change. I chop up garlic and a little chilli, drizzle with olive oil and whack it in the oven. I could eat it all day. Just add meat and you're good to go. You wouldn't believe how wildly different this "behaviour" is for me, compared to years ago.

Precision Nutrition have something called a "Sunday Ritual". You go do your food shopping, come back, un pack it all, make dinner and, whilst making dinner, you do the pre work for a couple of days worth of food - just bulk chop your veggies, bulk cook your meat, etc. You do a top up ritual on, say, Wed, too. There are lazy ways, for example, they have a chilli recipe which has 10 servings, so one recipe gives you 10 meals, and it'll sit in the fridge for a few days. If you don't mind eating the same thing then it's an easy way around it.

I generally don't bulk cook meat. I do bulk-chop veggies, though, as for me, I have no issue throwing meat in the oven or in the skillet but, I can't be bothered chopping veggies. So when I CAN be bothered chopping them, I do loads, and put them in containers which sit in the fridge. So whether i'm making eggs or meat, I have these boxes of veggies I can grab handfuls from and throw into whatever I need to throw them into.

Ok so i did ramble a lot but hopefully it was some use.

As a little aside, I think the work place has a lot to answer for. Most people eat at home morning and night, and one meal and a few snacks at work. Find the hole, if it's the work place, you need to create a strategy in advance to stop the bad habit (almost always comes down to preparation).

I think for long term, sustainable results that in the end are enjoyable and not painful, you need to find that "one" thing, that one habit that you can focus on which will give you the best results. Then you focus on nailing it, be consistent, when it no longer feels like a chore, go for the next one, and so on...

I think the work place has a lot to answer for. Most people eat at home morning and night, and one meal and a few snacks at work. Find the hole, if it's the work place, you need to create a strategy in advance to stop the bad habit (almost always comes down to preparation).

I have a quible about protein bars. Most are just glorified candy bars. Most of the time you want a snack, you're not really hungry, you just think you are. A drink of water or coffee will usually hold you over. If not, a few nuts or a square of dark chocolate will do it. I generally go with water or coffee since nuts and chocolate assumes I have some with me and if I do, I almost always eat it all, even if I don't need it. I've become averse to all packaged snacks so that requires no willpower for me to avoid them. I haven't bought anything from a vending machine in years. I walk by them and they don't even register with me as a source of something I want to put in my body. I just wish I had the willpower to drive by a Burger King without stopping.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

I understand what you're saying about protein bars, but there are actually some really good quality ones (I work in a supplement shop...). They're not cheap though.

When I go to uni I drink a shake on my way there in the morning, and bring a couple of bits of fruit, some nuts and a protein bar for when I'm there. Stops me eating the crap sandwiches or pasta pots from the cafeteria

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